


When the Dark Night Seems Endless, Please Remember Me

by Gigi_Sinclair



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Doomed Relationship, M/M, Pre-Canon, Unhappy Ending (obviously)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 19:18:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20376766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Sinclair/pseuds/Gigi_Sinclair
Summary: Fitzjames meets a guy who really likes hearing about China.





	When the Dark Night Seems Endless, Please Remember Me

**Author's Note:**

> Because I never saw a Tobias Menzies character I couldn't give a doomed romance. Title from Loreena McKennitt, "Dante's Prayer."
> 
> Includes references to past sexual abuse.

Commander James Fitzjames is passionately devoted to the Navy. 

It has given him a respectability he, a motherless half-breed bastard, could not otherwise hope to attain. No matter how he came to achieve the assignment, serving on the _Erebus_ is an honour of the highest magnitude, an accomplishment he will surely rank among his life's highest. Serving under Sir John is a privilege for which he will be eternally grateful. 

But sometimes, he's fucking tired of ice. 

“We've passed the halfway point of winter now,” the captain muses. “And the men's spirits are still high.”

“A credit to your leadership, sir.” 

“And to yours, Commander. The men are fortunate to have you. I know I couldn't do without you.”

Fitzjames smiles. “You honour me.” 

“And you yourself? You remain steadfast?”

“Of course, sir.” He wouldn't dream of being otherwise. 

“Another couple of months, and we should be able to send out scouting parties to see if it's breaking up. Less than a London Season now.” It's a barometer by which Fitzjames has never thought to measure. “Not long. But go get some sleep,” the captain says. “You need all the rest you can get.”

“As do you, sir,” he says, before he goes. 

Fitzjames' cabin is small, but it is private. As he pulls off his boots, he allows himself to think of London, and of his gentlemen's club, and of the fires that roar in the grates on all but the warmest of days. 

Some months ago, Fitzjames was sitting before one such fire, leafing through the _Times_, when he heard the sound of a softly clearing throat. He looked up. “May I sit here?” A gentleman stood before him, indicating the empty chair on the other side of the fire. 

“Most certainly.” 

“Thank you.” The man inclined his head politely. Fitzjames returned the gesture, and went back to the paper. 

Not a minute later, the other man cleared his throat again. “I'm dreadfully sorry to bother you.”

Fitzjames looked again, and this time he really _looked_. The man appeared a handful of years younger than Fitzjames, with golden hair and eyes a more poetic man would perhaps compare to sapphires, or to the sea. Fitzjames was not a poetic man. 

“Lord George Hindle.” The man extended a hand, which Fitzjames reached over to shake. “Please,” he went on, before Fitzjames could offer appropriate deference, “Just Hindle is fine. I've heard you're a Naval man.” 

“You have heard correctly.” Fitzjames hesitated, but only for a moment. “Hindle.” 

“If it isn't too much of an imposition,” Hindle went on, eyes wide. “Would you possibly have any stories to recount?” 

Fitzjames folded his newspaper and laid it aside. “I could tell you about the time I was shot in China.”

“Gosh!” Hindle beamed so brightly, it lit a flame of pride inside Fitzjames. “That sounds fascinating.” 

Fitzjames was not, and had never been, a fool. He'd seen other men's expressions glaze over when he recounted tales of his adventures, but Hindle's expression didn't glaze. He leaned forward raptly, biting his bottom lip as Fitzjames told the story of his gunshot wound, and of Guano Island, and of his stymied desire to walk through Russia. “You're dashed brave, Fitzjames,” he said. “I don't think I could do any of it.” 

“I'm certain you could,” Fitzjames lied, politely.

Hindle laughed, shaking his head. “That's very kind, but it proves you do not know me at all.”

_I might like to_, Fitzjames thought. There were a few men at the club with whom he got on, and he saw some former shipmates on occasion, but it was difficult for him to foster friendships. It always had been. 

Before he could say anything, to this effect or any other, Fitzjames glanced up. His gaze caught on the clock against the wall. “I'm terribly sorry, but I must go.” He was, in fact, supposed to go nearly a quarter of an hour earlier. “It was very nice to meet you, Hindle.” 

“And you,” Hindle replied. “Perhaps we might encounter one another again.”

“I hope so.” That was not mere politeness. 

The next time Fitzjames went to the club, he looked for Hindle, but could not find him. The time after that, however, Hindle was there, playing cards with the Duke of Crowborough and another man Fitzjames didn't recognize. Fitzjames hesitated, then strode forward. 

The brilliant grin on Hindle's face was worth the risk. “Fitzjames! You must join us. Gentlemen, this is my good friend, Commander Fitzjames. You're just in time. We are in dire need of another man to make up a foursome. You do play bridge?” 

_I do now_, Fitzjames thought, and ignored the Duke's raised eyebrows to sit down in the empty chair across from Hindle. 

They lost, badly. It didn't seem to bother Hindle. As they came away from the table, Hindle put his arm through Fitzjames'. “Are you free for a spot of dinner? I would love to hear more of your thrilling tales.” 

Fitzjames wasn't sure how many thrilling tales he had left to tell, but he wasn't eager to part company with Hindle just yet. “I would be delighted.”

Fitzjames did not often dine at the club, and rarely in company. The food was better than he remembered it being. He was in the throes of enjoying a very fine cut of beef, perfectly cooked and juicy, when an odd pressure appeared on the side of his foot. He ignored it, expecting it to move away presently. Instead, after a moment, the pressure moved very, very slowly, at a glacial pace, up his calf, until Fitzjames jerked his leg away quickly enough to rattle the dishes. 

“I'm very sorry,” Hindle murmured quietly. His cheeks were pink, as if he had just taken a bracing walk on deck. 

“Not at all.”

“Truly.”

“No apology necessary,” Fitzjames replied. His kept his voice low to match, although he couldn't have said why. Nothing untoward had happened here. “These tables are dashed small. Hardly any room at all.” 

“No. We should put in a request for larger ones,” Hindle said. The smile was back, although he didn't sound quite as carefree as he had before. “With the membership fees we pay, we certainly deserve it.” 

“Indeed,” Fitzjames agreed, feeling a little breathless. _Must be the generous amount of drink_, he thought. They couldn't fault the club for that. “Capital idea.” 

After port and cigars, they parted, with another vague wish but no definite plan to meet again. Fitzjames would normally take a cab home, back to the room he rented in the home of a couple he knew. Tonight, he decided to walk. It was a beautiful evening, one of the last, surely, before autumn truly set in. All of the city seemed to be out. As he passed by married couples, pairs of gentlemen friends and ladies with their chaperones, his mind crept back, entirely of its own accord, to Hindle and dinner and to something else entirely. 

Fitzjames was familiar with It, of course, and all the crude terms that could be used to name It. One could hardly be otherwise, when one joined the Navy at twelve years old. Onboard ship, it was an undesirable task, one of many sometimes forced upon the ship's boys and the midshipmen, although there were stiff penalties if anyone was found out. They very often weren't. It was fine. Just the price one paid for the opportunity to serve in the Navy. 

He himself hadn't partaken with anybody else since he'd become a lieutenant and thus awarded the privilege of saying 'no'. He took care of such matters for himself, as and when they cropped up, and he was satisfied with that. He had more important issues to contend with. Still, as he meandered back to the house, he couldn't help but wonder what might have happened if he had allowed Hindle's foot to keep going.

Autumn changed to winter. Hindle became a close friend of Fitzjames', then his best friend, although that was not a title for which there was much competition. They met frequently, most often at the club but also at the opera, at Hindle's townhouse in Belgravia, at the British Museum, where Fitzjames felt like an Oxford scholar as he explained Cantonese artifacts to Hindle, who hung on his every word. Fitzjames was invited for Christmas with Hindle's widowed mother and married elder brother at the family seat in Warwickshire. He went, so as not to disappoint Hindle, but Hindle's family didn't share their son's warm feelings for Fitzjames. Fitzjames hadn't expected them to. When Hindle drunkenly tumbled into Fitzjames' embrace on the sofa after a truly dire round of charades, put his paper hat on Fitzjames' head, and said, “Aye aye, Captain,” Hindle's mother fixed Fitzjames with a look so poisonous, he was certain she must know everything about him, about his patchy heritage and unknown maternity and general unsuitability to be friends with her noble born, fully English son. 

It was only much later, starting awake one night in his cabin on _Erebus_, that Fitzjames understood it might have been quite another realization that made her hate him so much. 

Spring brought with it the London Season. 

“My mother's determined to see me married this year,” Hindle said, as they sat side-by-side on a sofa at the club. “I told her it's a futile endeavour. I'm a second son with nothing at all to recommend me.” 

“You have a very great deal to recommend you.” Hindle was bright, and kind, and very handsome. This last had been feeling gradually more significant lately, but Fitzjames ignored it. 

“You are such a good friend, Fitzjames! Tell me, in the unlikely event she succeeds, you will be my best man, won't you? It would be dashed nice to have at least one person I care for at the church when I sign away my life.” 

“Of course I will. If I'm here.” Fitzjames had been ashore for a long time now. Hindle aside, he was beginning to feel the familiar itch to be back at sea. And there was a particular expedition he had his eye on.

Hindle sighed. “I do understand you need to go, but I will be so awfully eager for you to come home again.”

“I'll have new stories to tell you at last.” Although Hindle never complained about hearing the same ones. Rather, he listened with as much enthusiasm now as he did on their first telling. 

“Yes. Living my vicarious adventures for me. I can't wait.” There was a shadow in Hindle's usual smile, but, a few weeks later, he was almost more excited than Fitzjames to learn of Fitzjames' assignment as commander on _Erebus_. Of course, he didn't know how it had truly come about. Fitzjames wasn't about to tell him that, and bring himself down in Hindle's adoring eyes.

“We must celebrate. I'll throw you a party!”

“That's not necessary. But thank you.”

“Dinner, then. Just the two of us.” That sounded infinitely better. “My mother is going back to Warwickshire to see my newborn nephew. We'll have the place to ourselves. Tell me what you want Cook to make. We can have everything you're going to miss when you're at sea.” 

“I can't think of anything I will miss.” A lie. Fitzjames, an officer and a gentleman, couldn't let it stand. “Except for you, of course.” 

Tears shone in Hindle's eyes. That hadn't been Fitzjames' intention at all. Before he could attempt to offer some awkward consolation, Hindle said, “Just promise me you won't become so enamoured of snow and Esquimaux you decide to stay there.” 

Fitzjames laughed. “Certainly not.”

“You're sure?”

“I promise,” Fitzjames said. It felt like the most solemn oath he had ever made.

Despite Fitzjames' assurances that they didn't survive on hardtack and grog in the Navy—at least he personally did not—Hindle's cook produced a feast fit for royalty, or for a far larger party than just the two of them. Soup was followed by oysters, which was followed by baked salmon, then tongue, then a shank of lamb. Just when Fitzjames thought he might burst, the servants rolled out a Neapolitan cake. Hindle clasped his hands together gleefully, and, although he'd never had much of a sweet tooth, Fizjames forced himself to eat a large slice of it, for his friend's sake.

The wine was equal to the food, both in quality and quantity, and Fitzjames drank far more than he normally would. By the time he and Hindle retired to the study for port and cigars, his head was swimming. 

He and Hindle sat as they had at their first meeting, on either side of a roaring fire. Rain lashed against the windows, and Fitzjames felt snug, the way he did in the wardroom during a storm not severe enough to be severely worrying. 

“You'll be gone for a year,” Hindle puffed out an aromatic cloud of smoke. “That seems a dashed long time.”

“Don't be maudlin,” Fitzjames replied, although, when he said it like that, it did seem quite long.

“I don't know what I'll do without you.” 

Fitzjames drew a breath on his cigar, warmth filling his lungs. “You'll manage perfectly well. You did before you met me.” 

“I suppose,” Hindle said, “I didn't know what I was missing.”

Fitzjames' throat was suddenly dry. He downed the rest of his port in one quick swallow, even though he would surely pay for that in the morning. He looked at Hindle, who stared resolutely into the fire. 

_A year_, Fitzjames repeated to himself._ If all goes well._ He had been in the Navy since childhood. All never went well. 

Placing his glass on the table, Fitzjames left his seat and moved to sit beside Hindle. Hindle's chair was wide, but not quite wide enough for two. It was ridiculous for them both to sit on it, but Hindle didn't get up, or ask Fitzjames to do so. Instead, he set his cigar on an ashtray and turned his face, just a little. Just enough. 

Fitzjames' experience with kissing was limited. It had always been rough, perfunctory, a pretense of romance where no romance existed. This was not that. This was warm, and soft, and smoky. This made emotion unfurl, like a sail, in the darkest recesses of Fitzjames' soul. This was something he could do all night. 

But Hindle pulled away, concern in his big eyes. “If you have to be drunk to want it...”

“No!” That was so far from the truth, it was laughable. Fitzjames didn't laugh. “I have to be drunk to let myself do it.”

Hindle's expression softened. His hand moved from Fitzjames' shoulder to his face, his thumb tracing Fitzjames' cheekbone. “Oh, James.” It was the first time Hindle had ever used his first name. “Darling. We won't be caught. And we won't go to Hell.” 

“It's not that.” Although the first of those possibilities was far more concerning to Fitzjames than the second. “It's...” Fitzjames didn't know how to explain it. He didn't want to explain it, particularly. Didn't want Hindle—George—to know all the things Fitzjames had been forced to learn at a very young age. “It's the Navy,” he said. George didn't ask questions. He just kissed him again. 

George's bedroom was as sumptuous as Fitzjames would have expected for a man of his stature. The furniture was highly polished, the bed tall and luxurious. The most beautiful part, though, was George himself, slender and lithe, flushed from his cheeks down to his chest as candlelight cast shadows over his nude body. It was he who took the lead role, pushing Fitzjames to sit on the edge of that high bed, sitting astride Fitzjames' lap as he removed his own clothing.

“I've never done this before,” George murmured, tossing his shirt aside carelessly. Fitzjames opened his mouth, but George laid a finger on his lips. “And neither have you. Not like this. Not with me. That's all that matters, my darling.” If he hadn't loved him before, Fitzjames would have felt it then. He took George in his arms the way he'd long wanted to—the way he'd wanted to, if he was honest, since the moment George touched his foot in the club—and pulled George down to lie atop him. 

It was not an ideal position for disrobing, but after a few false starts and some fumbling, Fitzjames was nude, his cock nestled beside George's. For the first time since they'd come upstairs, George faltered. “I'm not quite sure...”

Fitzjames wrapped his hand around both of them. “Oh.” George's big eyes grew wider yet, reflecting the light of the candles. _We should do it in the daylight next time_, Fitzjames thought, scandal on top of scandal. _So that I might better see him._ “My dear James.” George reached for a kiss, which Fitzjames was all too happy to provide. He echoed the movement of his tongue with his hands, stroking up and down, gently at first, then more roughly until George gasped. That, Fitzjames took as his cue to move on, lest everything finish before it had really begun. 

He rolled them over, and slid down George's body. For a second, a fraction of a moment, there was a flash of memory, but George was right. No two voyages were alike. This was unlike any voyage Fitzjames had ever undertaken. He kissed the inside of George's thighs, one and then the other, and thrilled in the feeling of George's gentle hands caressing—not grasping—his hair as he took George's cock into his mouth. 

He didn't last long. When he came, Fitzjames endeavoured to savour as much as he could, even going so far as to lick it from the swell of George's stomach. “Oh, Jesus, James.” George was breathless, a most gratifying sound. Tears leaked from the corners of George's eyes, but Fitzjames knew that was a sign of fair weather, so to speak, rather than foul. He reached up to wipe them away, and George grabbed his hand, peppering it with kisses, front and back, up to Fitzjames' wrist and down to the tips of his fingers. 

“Holy God.” George opened his eyes. Fitzjames' own cock was hard almost to bursting, but it was the last thing on his mind. 

“Are you all right?”

George laughed. “A good bit more than all right, my dear.” He glanced down. “And now for you.” His hand was dry and the angle was strange, but he stroked Fitzjames' cock once, then again. Then he looked at Fitzjames directly. “I love you,” George said, and Fitzjames came in his hand. 

***

The night before _Erebus_ left port, George and Fitzjames lay together in an inn in Greenhithe. 

“I told my mother I was coming to give my friend a proper send off,” George said, lacing their fingers together atop the counterpane. They'd jumped into bed together the moment Fitzjames sneaked into the room, so consumed by passion he supposed he ought to be embarrassed by their intemperance. He wasn't. 

“I can't think she's sad to see me go.” 

“Probably not,” George replied, with honesty. “But I shall be overjoyed when you come home. I'll be right here, and I shall kiss you and kiss you until you can't take any more.” He demonstrated, pressing his lips over Fitzjames' face until Fitzjames was certain there was not one inch left unkissed. He laughed and rolled George onto his back, sitting astride him. He caught both of George's hands in his own, pressing one to the narrow straw mattress on either side of George's head. “Then,” George went on, with a lascivious wiggle, “I shall sit on your knee like a maid, and beg for stories of the Passage.”

“At once?” 

“Of course.”

“There's nothing you will wish to do first?” 

“Why? Do you have a suggestion?” 

“I suspect I may have a few.” He let go of George's hands to feel his way down George's sides, tickling his ribs until George giggled. Fitzjames took that as his cue to kiss George's neck, planting his face at the juncture of his shoulder and sucking so voraciously it was sure to leave a mark, albeit one that would be easily hidden by his clothing. George didn't complain. 

“James.” George sighed, his voice unsteady.

Fitzjames raised his head. “No melancholy. We promised one another.”

“I know.” But his sea-blue eyes watered.

Fitzjames looked away, lest he end up in the same state. “I had thought,” he said, hoping to create a distraction, “that when I get home, I might stay in London for a while. Perhaps write my memoirs. If--” _When_ “We find the Passage, they will be well worth reading.” Better, as well, that Fitzjames write them himself and control the story, rather than leaving it to a biographer who might find out more than he wished to share. 

“I would read them even if you found nothing more than the way to Sir John's garden gate.” George frowned, a crease on his delicate forehead. “But would you really give up adventuring? Do you think you could do that?”

It would not be easy. However, “I think,” Fitzjames said, “you've shown me there are distinct advantages to a life on land. Advantages I had not previously considered.” 

Now, George began to cry in earnest. “No, George, please...” He wrapped his arms around George, who embraced him in turn. Fitzjames held on for a moment, unsure what else to do, until George breathed deeply. 

“My apologies. It shan't happen again.” 

Terms of endearment did not come easily to Fitzjames. “Sweetheart,” he said. It sounded awkward to his ears, but George smiled weakly. He took Fitzjames' hand in his and kissed it.

“Every day you are away, I will write you a letter of love,” George swore. “Every day. No names, of course, I'm not that stupid. I will keep the letters in a box, and when you're working on your memoirs, you can look at a new one each day and remember how much I adore you.” 

“I won't need them then. I'll have you to tell me, will I not?” 

“Then you can imagine me doing it while you're gone. I want you to stand on the deck of your ship in the frigid Arctic and think, 'I wonder what my dear George is writing to me today. It's probably some terrible rubbish, he's an awful writer, but maybe he'll improve with the practice.'” George grinned, wiping the remnants of the tears from his face. “And now, my darling, I would very much like you to fuck me.” 

Fitzjames nearly fell off the edge of the bed. “What?” 

“I know you've an aversion to the act...”

“It's not that, not at all.”

“Because you think it will cause me pain.” That _was_ it. Fitzjames could never do that, not to him. “But it's what I want, James. I want to be able to feel you, for as long as I can. I want to have something to remember you by, while I dream about you coming home and doing it to me again.” He blinked, long lashes against pale skin. “Please.” 

Fitzjames couldn't refuse a request like that. He knew of no mortal man who could. 

***

Alone in his cabin, Fitzjames climaxes thinking of George, of his gentleness and his sweetness and of his heat. He does so quietly, because while the cabin may be private, it is by no means silent. The moment his orgasm is finished, he regrets it. It means he has to clean himself up with the chill water of his washbasin. 

Fitzjames is not alone in his vice. Unsubstantiated scuttlebutt of the type Fitzjames pretends not to hear says Bridgens, the steward, has a paramour, for want of a better word, aboard _Terror_. Fitzjames wonders if it would make matters easier or more difficult, to have love so close and still so inaccessible. Whether, in Bridgens' case, it even is love at all. Whether it matters. 

The captain asked if Fitzjames remains steadfast. He does. The Navy is his life's calling. Even as he tires of the monotonous white landscape. Even as the drunken Captain Crozier irritates him to an extreme, almost insensible, degree. It is an honour to serve with Sir John, and an honour to serve his country. But for the first time, it does not feel like this is Fitzjames' only home. 

Mississauga, Ontario, Canada  
September 2014

Although she is nearly eighty years old, Emily Hindle Davidson prides herself on being technologically up to date. She reads about the discovery of Sir John Franklin's sunken ship _Erebus_ on the CBC website, poring over the details on her laptop as her daughter arrives for their lunch date.

“We have a connection to it,” she tells Christine. “Family stories say my father's grandfather had a close friend who sailed with Franklin.” 

“That's interesting, Mom,” Christine says, although she doesn't sound all that interested. 

“George Hindle,” Emily goes on anyway. “He was a fascinating character. Married very late in life, had only one child.” Emily sent Christine and her brothers email links to the family tree she created on Ancestry.ca. She doesn't think any of them have looked at it. “His wife's name was Ann, but when he died, they found a steamer trunk full of love letters he'd written to someone with the initial J. Hundreds of them.” A few are still floating around the family, although the vast majority are long gone. “Some of them talked about this J being in a cold place, with a lot of snow. My grandmother always thought she must have been a Nordic beauty, some Swedish or Norwegian aristocrat George was forbidden from marrying.” 

Emily's grandmother had a dramatic streak. Emily is more practical, data-focused. She worked as a lab assistant, until she left to have her children. If she'd been born a generation later, she would have been a molecular biologist, with or without children. 

When she was in her twenties, Emily drew a possible link between these love letters and George Hindle's friend, or perhaps “friend”, who died on the Franklin expedition. There is no way to prove it, and she certainly never mentioned the thought to her parents or grandparents, but it makes Emily sad for the poor man. She was too young to remember much about her father going off to fight the Germans in the Second World War, but she can picture her mother standing at the window while he was away, wondering when he would come home. George's friend never did. Given the large volume of letters, it seems like it was a long time before he accepted that. 

“Come on, Mom,” Christine holds out an arm. “I've got us reservations at that Italian place you like.” 

“Did you? Oh, thank you dear. That will be lovely.” Emily closes the website, with its picture of a scuba diver beside the sunken ship, and goes to get her coat.


End file.
